Unconditional
by queenofgoblins
Summary: He swallowed and switched himself back to 'brother-in-law-to-be mode'. Brother-in-law. The term couldn't be so far from his true feeling that it seemed like some kind of joke...


Hermione smiled sunnily, then laughed. Her laugh sent shivers down George's spine, wonderful, jittery shivers. He had made her laugh! George smiled in response to her mirth. She replied but George didn't quite catch what she said. He was too busy being distracted by the way the sun made her brown eyes shimmer a sort of hazel and her smile. Her smile. He knew he shouldn't care if he made her laugh, that he shouldn't ache to brush the strand of curly brown hair from her face, to then caress her face with hands then her lips with his...

"Are you ok?" Hermione asked him, snapping him out of his reverie.

He swallowed and switched himself back to 'brother-in-law-to-be mode'. Brother-in-law. The term couldn't be so far from his true feeling that it seemed like some kind of joke.

"Sorry, just tired." Hermione laughed again. George felt his body tense again in response.

"I'm not surprised," Hermione said "Even at some ungodly time of the night I can see your light under the door. Do you ever sleep?"

George swallowed and mumbled something affirmative in response throwing in a comment about the jokeshop. He couldn't tell her that he spent most nights trying to listen to her and Ron. As perverse as it was. He wanted to know what she would sound like, so he could think of her...imagine how it would be. He knew that Hermione had a habit of sighing out in something like Spanish... or was it Latin? He didn't know for sure. He looked at her with a small smile. She smiled in response and touched his arm. He couldn't allow that. No, it was too much. He knew he should try harder with his self-preservation plan but if he was truly honest with himself he knew it was too late. Self-preservation was why he seemed distant to her, aloof and disinterested. In response she tried to interest him, charm him, make him like her more so she could feel accepted. If only she knew... every time she turned up the charm he would fall more and in response get more distant. It was a vicious cycle.

George gently moved his arm away from her touch, not as quickly as he should have done for his own comfort. But quick enough that Hermione looked hurt. He knew that him seeming to dislike her was upsetting but what could he do? It was the only rational choice. If he got to know her more then he couldn't convince himself that he couldn't possibly love her because he didn't know her well enough. But it was a lie. He knew her very well. Her favourite colours, foods, activities, time of day, flowers... it was as if he was an encyclopedia of knowledge, specialised for the woman in front of him. The woman he loved so much that it hurt. God how it hurt. Every nerve screamed for release. It was her name he sighed at night, bunching up his duvet so he could kid himself that he was holding her, replaying those whispered words she sighed to someone else in his head "Te amo...sodalis." But every morning he woke up alone, while she woke up next to someone who was beginning to take her for granted, didn't appreciate that she would be emotional and hormonal and needing reassurance. Would snap at her for it. She couldn't help it, she was pregnant. Yes, pregnant. It didn't bother him as much as it should have. He knew that if by some miracle she decided she wanted him, he wouldn't mind about the child, he would raise it as his own if necessary. It was worth it.

It was Ron's impatience with Hermione that really affected George. Not just because he snapped, though that bothered him too, but because she wanted reassurance, a cuddle. The first time George gave her a hug, he had been caught off guard. She had clung onto him and he had melted into that embrace. She hadn't noticed because she was crying, but George felt like she had taken a chunk of his heart when they heard Ron came looking for her so that she pulled away, got up and went back to the guy who had made her cry. Since then he made sure he left the house at the slightest chance of her turning up at his door, sought solace in strange women's arms, always silently whispering her name in the dark regardless of who he was with.


End file.
